


The New Shinigami

by HuntressInSilver



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Age Difference, Eventual Smut, F/M, Female pronouns for Grell, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Suicide, then everything will be happy and fluffy, warnings only apply to first chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 05:36:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12204939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HuntressInSilver/pseuds/HuntressInSilver
Summary: She had a great life, but she hated herself. She didn't know that by ending her life, she wouldn't get pitch black nothingness like she hoped, but finally found happiness. "Guess I was meant to put an end to this to finally find what I had been looking for instead of holding on like everyone said". That's what she keeps thinking.





	1. There's No Pain In Death

**Author's Note:**

> Heya! this is my first work posted here, I hope it's good enough :) this chapter describes the main character's suicide, so feel free to skip it if it makes you uncomfortable or anything  
> Also, unlike what you might think from this chapter, this is not a modern AU

She had a great life.

Not perfect, but great nonetheless.

She had loving parents, good friends, did great in school, she wasn’t rich, but she wasn’t spoiled and knew what she could afford, so she only needed that.

But despite this, she couldn’t bring herself to be happy. She felt extremely lonely, being eighteen and never having dated anyone. No, never having anyone love her back. Of course no one ever loved her back, she thought, looking in the mirror and crying almost every morning.

She felt awful, feeling like a failure of a human. She thought she didn’t deserve this, this happy life. Why would she?

Nobody really needed her. Her friends could easily find a far better friend, her parents would be over her soon, she didn’t have a lover, so no one would have cared about her on that matter.

That day was particularly dreadful. Started bad, developed worse.

She woke up that day feeling tired, the remains of an almost sleepless night spent crying in her bed and trying not to wake her parents. She had gotten to school, clearly wearing a distressed face, her classmates spent the whole day asking her “What’s wrong?” as if she’d tell them. She hoped everyone would just shut up and leave her alone. That last P.E. lesson had been what made her snap. Silly, she knew that. Having her depression worsen just for a stupid P.E. lesson. That just made her feel worse. Seeing how her classmates easily got through with all the exercises, when she couldn’t even throw a ball, she felt as a failure as ever.  She couldn’t take this anymore.

Trying hard, too hard, just to not feel like this, and having her life find ways to push her down every day.

How could she go on? She was alone in this, not wanting to complain to her friends and not wanting to worry her parents.

As she got home, she thought this thoroughly. She had everything planned.

She ate lunch as always, maybe less than usual, but she definitely wasn’t feeling hungry.

She walked in her bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror and thinking: “At least in death, I want to be beautiful. If I can.”

She shaved as perfectly as she could manage, then spent quite some time on her makeup, thinking hard on whether or not she should have worn foundation. “I’d look better with it” she thought, “But I want them to see how all the color drained from my skin together with my blood”.

At that last thought, she thought as herself as too cruel, but eventually decided against it.

With a full make up and no foundation, she walked in her room, dressing in her favorite black dress and high heels.

She straightened her hair and checked herself out one last time.

Yeah, at least in death, she was going to be beautiful. Wearing her black dress, a black lacey chocker, high high heels and sporting her best makeup, black smokey eyes with thick false lashes and dark red lipstick that made her light blue eyes pop, she definitely was.

As she had planned, she recorded herself, explaining clearly what she thought and why she did what she was going to do. “I was wondering whether I should have written this, or recorded it, eventually coming to the conclusion that maybe you wanted to hear my voice one last time. I’m deeply sorry. Actually, no. I’m sorry for what you’re going to feel, but I’m not regretting this choice. I love you so much” she started, talking for only her parents to hear, spending more than half an hour recording.

When she was done, she texted her best friends a simple: “I’m sorry, I love you” and left her phone in her room, not wanting to be disturbed.

She put on her playlist of favorite songs, letting the notes roll in her ears as she relax, feeling good about what was to come.

She grabbed a big basin, big enough to hold the 4/5 liters of blood she knew she had in her body. She was cruel, yeah, selfish, definitely, weak, obviously, but she didn’t want to scar her parents too much.

She also took a pair of scissors from her drawer.

She was ready now.

She wrote a little note, saying “I left a recording on my phone, these are the passwords to my apps and everything for free access” and leaving her phone and app passwords so she wouldn’t have any more secrets with her parents.

She checked the time. 4.32 pm. She had to be quick, or her parents might come home and stop her.

She sat on the floor against her living room wall, basin on her left side, and took tight hold of the scissors.

She pressed the sharp tip on her wrist, feeling the pain just as sharp.

She took deep breaths, pressing harder on her left arm, blood started to spill out, and just when she thought she was in deep enough, she began dragging the blade vertically across her forearm.

Half way through, her mind blacked out, too full on adrenaline to feel any pain anymore, already missing enough blood to make her feel her head light as she never felt it.

She made sure, as much as she could, not to spill any blood out of the basin she took with her.

It was going to take a little while before she lost consciousness, she knew that, so she just let herself be lulled by the harsh notes she was listening to in her hardcore songs.

One would think that, at times like this, you would like to listen to slow, sad songs. Not her. She wasn’t feeling sad at all. She felt pumped. She liked having her ears drilled by these strong sounds.

She cared about the lyrics more anyway. Every single one of those songs were either love songs or “I’m strong enough to do this” songs.

They relaxed her.

Two songs passed, no, maybe three. What was she listening to before this? She understood at that point that she was starting to lose track of time.

After a little while more, she knew she was starting to get a lot less oxygen to her brain: she was definitely hallucinating.

She was starting to see something… no, someone, by her side.

A little bit more time passed, she was drifting off. Her eyes rolled back, she closed them, trying to get back a grip on reality. She didn’t want this to end just yet.

She was enjoying the satisfying feeling of her blood streaming out of her body, her heart beating slower and slower, once following the rhythm of the of the music, now hardly keeping up with the bass line.

When she opened her eyes again, her vision was way blurrier than before, but something definitely wasn’t blurry: the figure right next to her.

He was one of the most beautiful guys she had ever met. Her age, maybe a couple of years older.

His black hair was shaved on the sides, long enough to cover the base of his neck. Both shells of his ears were covered in piercings, he had a ring on his nostril and one on his lip.

His bright green eyes were framed by perfectly applied black eye pencil, still clearly visible behind the large black glasses he was wearing.

She could see, behind the collar of his shirt and from underneath the sleeves of his suit, the lines of black and white tattoos.

He was _the_ most beautiful guy she had ever met.

“Who…” she started, but her voice was refusing to come out of her throat. She tried again and again, till the most feeble sound left her lips. “Who are you?”

She felt sleepy, but still refused to let go of her consciousness.

“I’m the one who’ll lead you to the other side.” He answered, kneeling by her side and smiling softly.

“So you are Death” she pointed out.

“More or less, yeah” he nodded.

Her eyes began closing again, as she said: “Man, death is beautiful”

He chuckled lightly under his breath.

“You know” she said, using all the energy she had left, “Life hurts, but there’s no pain in death. It doesn’t hurt anymore”

As she finally closed her eyes, a single tear rolled down her cheek.

She felt his cold hand gently rub the tear off her face, then all she had left to feel and see was blackness and cold, and finally, smiling one last time, she felt nothing at all anymore.

\---

“Lux Baker. Born 20th March 1999. Dead 17th October 2017. Cause of death: blood loss due to successful suicide attempt. Particular notes: none.” The reaper said, hitting the page hard with his cold “completed” stamp on the girl’s page on his journal.

He chuckled lightly. “How funny, an emo girl called ‘Light’." he said, then he gently pushed back behind her ear a bit of hair that had fallen on her face, adding:"We’ll see each other again soon, Lux, I can’t wait.”

He lightly kissed her temple and disappeared as quick as he had come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was thinking of making this a 2k words chapter but barely made it to 1,5k words... i can't make longer chapters helppp.  
> I think that, as a song, Better Off Dead by Sleeping With Sirens rappresents quite well what our Lux is feeling... well, was feeling. It's a great song if you like punk/hardcore and so on I don't really know what genre it is, so I'd suggest you listen to it.  
> Hope you enjoyed >_<


	2. Good News: You Died

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tfw you should be doing homework but really don't know how to do it, so you write fanfiction instead.   
> Leave all the angst behind and let's start with the happy part of this fic ;)

When she opened her eyes, all she could feel was disgust.

Disgust for herself, not even able to commit suicide. Disgust for the white, unfamiliar room she was in. disgust for that boy she saw when she last closed her eyes, tricking her into thinking she was going to be finally free.

He had called her parents, hadn’t he? Or maybe he directly called the ambulance.

How had he even managed to get into her house anyway?

She couldn’t remember a single thing that happened since she had passed out.

She couldn’t remember, but she could imagine: the guy must have called someone, the ambulance must have arrived, closing as best as they could the long cut on her arm, then took her to this hospital and attached her to a…

Wait.

She wasn’t attached to any machine. And this definitely didn’t look like a hospital room.

Sure, it was all white, but she was lying on a comfortable bed and the room had a huge window and a bathroom.

Lux was utterly confused. Where was she exactly? How had she got there?

Oh my god. This wasn’t some kind of recovery community or something. Right?

She got up from the bed, just to notice that she couldn’t see very clearly.

“Nice, they even took off my contacts, how the hell am I supposed to see anything?” She thought to herself.

It took her quite some time and some browsing around the room to finally notice the pair of thin-framed glasses on the little drawer beside her bed.

There, right under the glasses, laid what look like a post card.

 A black square of cardboard with nothing but a white cartoony skull in the middle of it.

Lux turned the card around, and there, she found a message, a letter written in a clean cursive calligraphy, the one you see in films which talk about really old times.

_“Dear ms. Baker,_

_We’re deeply sorry for whatever reason got you to commit such a sad act, but we’re glad to accept you among us._

_Bad news: you died._

_Good news: you died._

_You’re now what people call a ‘shinigami’. A grim reaper. A being whose existence closely resemble one of to a god of death._

_In short, our job is to collect the souls of the people close to death. We get to chose whether they should live or die._

_You’ll find out more in our training. You’ll attend theory and practical classes for a month, eventually having an exam in which we’ll grade your practical technique, your knowledge and your ethics. You’ll then have to pass a final exam to be able to get your own glasses and your own death scythe._

_We’ll be pleased to meet you all newcomers tomorrow at 2.00 pm._

_The administrative department”_

“Okay, this must be a really bad joke” Lux thought.

She grabbed the ugly pair of round eye glasses and put it on, still not seeing all that well, but better nonetheless.

As she walked around the room, finally being able to see what she had been looking at the whole time earlier, she noticed how this actually looked like a cheap hotel room.

She had a whole wardrobe, filled with black suits that looked all the same, and a tall mirror inside one of its doors.

She took a look at herself, noticing how her makeup had been completely taken off, her hair was down and she was wearing nothing but a white, almost transparent silky dress.

That’s how she noticed she was wearing nothing _but_ the dress. She could clearly see everything through the material.

The dressed reached just below her knees, and in such a state, she really did look like a ghost: pale skin covered by a white dress that exposed her arms, black hair that laid on her white shoulders. And those creepy, shimmering green eyes.

“Wait, what? Green eyes? _What??_ ” she finally realized, after staring at herself for almost five minutes.

She walked closer to the mirror, staring shocked at her new eyes. These surely weren’t her eyes.

Her eyes where a grayish-light blue, not this yellow… green… shimmery… what the hell was even this color? It looked as if she had two distinct irises, the most outer one being a really light green, almost yellow -lime green? As an artist, that’s what she would’ve called it-, the inner one, being bright emerald green.

At this point, she was shocked, scared, anxious. Almost every unpleasant feeling she had ever felt, decided to show up in that moment.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS GOING ON??” the girl screamed, dropping on her knees and shoving her hands in her hair.

She wasn’t going to cry, that was what Lux had promised herself, but this was way over how much she could take in.

There she was, kneeling on the ground, desperately crying, when she heard a faint knock on her door.

Surprised, she looked up, wiping her tears and trying to steady her breath.

The person on the other side of the door knocked again.

Lux got up and walked to check who it was.

As she opened the door, Lux saw a man standing in front of her.

…they were a man right?

The person in front of Lux was, as much as she could see through her slightly blurry sight, a young man with long, red hair, as long as she couldn’t think humanly possible, and completely dressed in red, including red glasses, that covered green shimmery eyes like her own.

He reached out his hand for Lux to shake.

She unsurely grabbed his hand, feeling a bit embarrassed at how cold her own hands were at first, but then noticing his weren’t that wormer themselves.

With a large grin, the man greeted her: “The name’s Grell Sutcliff. I heard you were having quite the emotional breakdown right? Don’t worry, everyone of us has been there.”

Lux was instantly enraptured by the way this person talked and acted. She found herself smiling once again, finally relaxing and breathing normally, except for the occasional sobs that followed a long cry.

Grell soon let go of her hand, placing his own one on his hip, looking Lux up and down.

“This is no good sweetheart, though. You look as if you just came back from the dead. Well, you technically did, but this is no excuse to go around in such a poor condition. May I come in? I’ll help you out.”

Lux was confused. This person had just showed up in front of her door, they were a complete stranger, and still asked to come in and help her.

Before she could even think anything, Lux found herself nodding and stepping away to let Grell in.

“I’m… I’m Lux Baker anyway.” She shyly added as the older one walked in her room.

“What a wonderful name. Now, sweetie, they won’t let us wear makeup, but it’s not really a rule, depending on whichever time one comes from, they have their own habits right? I, for instance, am used to the kind of light makeup I’m wearing right now. But you won’t find any here, you’ll have to go buy it yourself somewhere when you have time. I can help you with your hair and clothes anyway in the meantime.”

Grell started talking as if it was nothing, as if they had been friends for the longest time, walking around the room, in her bathroom and finally opening her wardrobe.

“Oh my, I had almost forgot how unfeminine the newcomers clothes are. Don’t  worry, I’ll get you to buy a dress once this whole training thing is over. You see, I had to work hard to become the way I am right now. After all, don’t care what they say, I’m still the prettiest girl in the ranks.” Grell said, pushing her hair behind her shoulder.

Lux widened her eyes. How could she have misgendered someone like this? After all, she thought about herself as an accepting and open-minded person, of course she should’ve understood Grell’s situation. She blamed this mistake to the glasses.

“Well well, maybe if we can get you in a decent condition you might actually get close to me, in metters of beauty of course. You’re quite a sight yourself.”

Lux blushed at the compliment, no one had ever told her such words.

“What are you all shy for? You aren’t even talking. Please, do me the honor of telling me about yourself while I give you this little makeover, will ya?” Grell asked, smiling widely again, pushing aside a chair that was in the back of the room, next to a little desk, offering Lux to sit down.

Lux couldn’t tell how much time had passed, Grell helped her wash her hair and blow dry it, tying it up, in a neat ponytail, leaving her long bangs on the side, covering her right eye.

She then picked a suit (they all looked the same, but Grell spent almost twenty minutes choosing one for Lux) and showed Lux the final result in the mirror.

Meanwhile, Lux told Grell whatever she asked: her age, where was she from, how and why she had killed herself, her hobbies, her ideal man, such stuff.

When Lux finally looked in the mirror, she definitely looked less like a ghost than she did before, actually, she looked more like a punky employee.

“Tsk,” Grell started after a bit of looking in the mirror, irritated. “They could at least give you a skirt instead of this ugly ass pants. You would’ve looked stunning in one of those tight skirts.”

“Thank you a lot Grell, you did a wonderful job” Lux smiled at her anyway, nodding at the other’s comment.

“I’m sorry, I’m just around here for a little because I kind of messed up and they suspended me for a little,” Grell started, rubbing the back of her head, slightly uncomfortable. “ I’d be happy of helping you out tomorrow too and get you to the classroom, but I’m not quite sure that’s possible. I’d give you a tour of the building, but that’s something for your teachers to do. Just so you know, if you walk down this corridor, you’ll find some stairs and an elevator. This is the fifth floor. On the first floor there’s the reception. You’ll find a map of the building there. Classes and a cafeteria are on the underground floor. I’d suggest you eat something, it’s quite late.” She finally finished, smiling again and leaving the room.

“Yes, thank you again” Lux said, smiling herself and waving her hand.

“Hope to see you again soon!” Grell waved back, closing the door behind her.

Lux sat on her bed, finally having the time to process everything that had happened to her.

She had killed herself. She had _successfully_ killed herself, only to be brought back as a spirit of death, who had to _work for the rest of eternity_ , reaping the souls of dying people. She had just found a new friend in a transgender troublemaker who was probably like seven years older than her, who had barged in her room just because she had heard Lux freak out at the top of her lungs.

Oh. And she had to study again.

“What the fuck” Lux breathed out, smiling slightly, and getting up to have what she hoped would be a proper dinner.

The first dinner of her afterlife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah, this chapter is 1918 words long, like the year Edward Cullen got turned into a vampire *-* (My nerd side is showing sorry...i still prefer Jacob anyway... THESE NOTES HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE CHAPTER WTH SORRY)


	3. Nice To Meet You, Darling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've been away for soooo long, but school has been quite a pain. It's not exactly going to be better, but for now I'm on holiday so I have time to write and I'm back to write a couple new chapters.  
> At the beginning it's going to be a bit rushed, but then we'll finally meet Unny! Enjoy!

Outside her room, the whole building looked like a big agency, with hundreds of employees in neat suits running back and forth in a rush to get their tasks done.

Well, not really right outside her door. The floor she was on only had bedrooms, like a hotel corridor.

As Grell had said, at the end of the hallway, Lux found an elevator.  She used it to reach the first and underground floors and find the cafeteria, where she ate a little, despite not being all that hungry.

People of many different ages, the youngest being around twelve years old and the oldest being in their sixties, crowded the big room, and almost all of them were studying.

"This must be what being in uni is like" Lux thought.

She checked the clock. The note on her drawer said: "Tomorrow at 2 pm", but, was today 'tomorrow'? When did she wake up? What day was it? When was the note left there?

She grunted in frustration, getting up and wandering around the floor looking for the classes. 

"It's late anyways" she thought, once she found what she was looking for, and decided to go back to her room to sleep. 

The following day, she got ready, in a much worse state than the one Grell had achieved the previous day, and got to the meeting spot.

It was a university-like class, in which four students were seated looking at the pit where the professor was supposed to be.

Lux looked at the four people who were patiently waiting for their welcoming tour.

Three of them were males. Two were boys, no older than 20, one was a slightly older man, probably around his mid-thirties. The fourth was a girl, definitely younger than Lux.

They were all dressed in suits like Lux's, and, she thought, that was quite obvious, since herself did not have any other clothing.

The two boys were sitting next to each other, chatting casually. The man sat behind them, his hands folded on his lap. The girl sat near the man, with an empty seat between them.

Lux decided to join the girl. 

She sat beside her, and the girl got immediately tense.

"Hey" Lux said, as softly as she could manage. "I'm Lux"

The girl looked at her from the corner of her eyes. "I'm scared. This place is weird. These people are weird." The girl told her.

"How old are you?" Lux said, curious.

"14" answered the girl.

"Why did you kill yourself?"

"A mistake. I didn't mean to do it. It's none of your business anyway"

Lux sighed at the girl's attitude, and turned around, resting her head on her hand and deciding to just wait.

"Oh, another one who speaks with that strange manner, Arthur" one of the boys in front of her said, in a thick American accent. "When did you die dearie?" 

Lux turned to see who was talking to her. "I... when... what?" She asked, a bit unsure on the question.

"When did you die. What year was it?" The other boy insisted, helping his friend.

"2017" Lux answered. "Why?"

"We didn't all die at the same time you know?" The older man barged in. "I, for instance, killed myself in 1987. These two here" he said, gesturing to the two boys in front of him "Escaped the civil war in 1862 and 1864. This girl was born in 2032. I don't know why we all came here now, but that's how it is"

Lux was confused, surprised and amazed, but didn't have much time to feel like this, since the door slammed open and a man walked in the class.

"Well then, ladies and gentleman. You had the unfortunate luck of joining our dispatch today. I'll briefly explain: people who kill themselves become grim reapers. Your jobs is to collect the souls of people when their time comes, but there are a few rules. Most of them can be summed up in a single one: don't mess with life and death. If you think someone deserves to live, let them live. If you think they should die, collect their soul. You'll have to attend a brief training, in which you'll give a couple exams. Depending on the results we'll see in what department you should work. If you'll end up doing the actual reaping work, you'll get a pair of custom glasses and a scynthe. Now please, join me in this little tour of the building where you'll live for the duration of the training."

They walked for almost two hours, the older reaper explaining what every room they passed by was for. 

He then talked about the times of the lessons and the duration and mode of the exams. 

Since then, almost a month passed. A month in which Lux studied about souls, life, death, demons, angels, they had some practical training every now and then, then they gave their exams.  

As expected, Lux got the top grade on everything, except her practical technique. 

Meanwhile, some new reapers joined almost every day.

She had to have her final exam with one of the boys from the 1800s she had started her training with.

"Here's your target. You'll have to judge their souls and decide whether they deserve to live or not." The reaper in front of them said, giving them an envelope.

It contained a single sheet of paper, with a name, a date and the cause of death.

Lux and her partner walked out of the dispatch building for the first time since they had got back from the dead. 

Even from the outside, the building looked like the one of a big company.

It was in the middle of a thick wood, surrounded by nothing but tall trees. The only road led to a small bridge. After that, nothing. 

Lux glanced at the boy beside her, who raised his shoulders and shook his head in confusion.

They walked down the bridge, reaching the other side, and Lux felt dizzy as she stepped foot on the ground again.

And there she was. In front of her, a small path. Behind her, that same small bridge and woods, but there was no sign of the tall building they came from.

As they looked around, still a bit confused, they almost got run over by a carriage. 

Lux looked shocked at the boy, who looked at her like that was the most normal thing that could happen.

"Let's just follow it" Lux sighed.

\---

A couple of days passed. They found out they were in the countryside just outside of London, at the beginning of 1889. 

They found their target: a little girl with a paralysis in the lower half of her body who was severely ill. She was smart. So smart. She could've done big things. But not in this moment.

Her date of death was way too soon for her to actually get anything done, and her illness didn't let her do what she wanted.

They had to check on her a bit more before deciding on her sentence though. 

One never knows whether she might create or discover something glorious just a couple of days before her death.

In that moment, though, it was the middle of the night. She had had a grave crisis and her father had showed just how little faith in life he had.

Lux was watching as he sat beside his daughter's bed, talking to his wife while the girl slept.

"She doesn't have much time left, Mary"

"So what, Anthony? You want to let her die? To pretend she's already dead?"

"Of course not. But we can't ignore this situation."

"What are you thinking?"

"I just want to be ready."

How foolish, Lux thought, it's way to early to think about that.

But of course they couldn't know.

The man got up, grabbed his coat and walked out of the house.

Lux gave a quick glace at her partner, who told her: "Follow him, I'll check on the girl"

And so she did, following the man down the dark and wet hallways of Victorian London.

He stopped his quick pacing in front of a rundown shop, the only sign said: "Undertaker".

The man stopped, took a deep breath and walked in.

She followed right after.

The shop was dark, the only illumination coming from the dim light of a few candles. She could only see a shadow in a corner. 

The shadow quickly moved forward, stopping right in front of the man.

Lux took a step back, startled by the sudden and unexpecter movement.

"Hello" the shadow said.

He was in the light now, but Lux didn't have other words to describe him. He was still a shadow. 

Covered in dark clothes, stood a man whose face was barely visible behind his long bangs. Lux couldn't see much, but she swore he was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. He was grinning in such a creepy way she wondered how he managed to look so attractive still. His face was crossed by a long scar, so really, how could she feel like he was this good-looking?

She didn't bother hiding in the shadows, no mortal could see her anyway, unless they were close to death or she wanted to be seen. So she took a step forward, getting closer to the two men, who were now talking about the little girl's situation, so she could hear them better.

As she walked in the light, she took a glimpse of the dark man's grin twitching.

How?

He was focused on his costumer's explaniation, and it sure wasn't the reason of that unvoluntary movement. He was just talking about how his daughter couldn't walk, and that couldn't have been a shock for a mortician. Then why?

Maybe she just imagined it. 

It had been such a subtle movement, maybe it didn't even happen.

She shrugged off the feeling and just listened to the two men talking.

When they were done, the little girl's father walked out of the shop, in such a low mood Lux felt bad for him for the first time in days.

She was about to follow him outide, when she heard a noise. A low noise, nothing louder than a whisper. And maybe that was what it was: a whisper.

She turned around and saw the mortician look somewhere in her direction.

"I said wait" he said, a little louder this time.

She stood there, holding the door open, frozen in place by panic.

That man could see her?

"Come here please" his voice was so different from before, it didn't even sound like the same person. Before, when he was talking to the other man, he sounded somehow mocking, childish even. Not now. Now he sounded to serious it was terrifying. And he sounded so  _sexy_ now. Wait. What was she thinking? She didn't even know this man.

She slowly walked towards him.

"Can you... can you see me?" She asked, unsure.

"Of course I can, why shouldn't I?" There it was again, that playful voice. Lux relaxed a bit. "You're a shinigami right?" 

Lux was even more shocked than she was before.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I often forget" he said, since she wasn't answering him, and lifted his hair off his face. "I am too"

She was now staring into the most catching eyes she had ever seen. They looked just like hers, and in a month she had grown used to seeing them. But on him, they looked even better.

Also, he looked even more handsome than before. And definately younger. If she thought he was in his fourties earlier, she now thought he was in his late twenties.

He laughed amazingly, not the coarse laughter he was letting out before in front of that man. 

"What's your name?" he asked her, using his serious voice again.

"I'm Lux" she somehow felt safe in front of this odd person, but she couldn't quite figure out why.

He felt so familiar.

"Nice to meet you, darling."

"N-nice to meet you too" she answered, stuttering a bit.

"Hey, relax, I don't bite" he said, smiling softly. "Do you want to come sit down? Have some tea?"

She agreed, feeling as if he had catched her and was dragging her towards him with just his voice.

They walked to the back of the shop and sat at a small table. The room was small and dark, only lit by very few candles. They had walked there through a dark red curtain, and except for the table and the chairs, the room was empty. Behind them was a heavy black door.

"Are you not going to ask anything?" He asked her.

Lux noticed she hadn't said much more than the answers he had sought from her. She was too eraptured by those eyes, too mesmerized by that voice, too distracted by that beautiful face of his.

"Why should I?" She asked. She mentally face palmed. What kind of question was that? That was just plain rude. But it was true. She probably would never see this man again in her life. Her heart clenched in fear at the thought. 

She didn't want to never meet him again. She wanted to be blessed enough to see his face one more time.

She had just met him, but was already addicted to him. And they hadn't even talked that much. What was happening to her? 

Contrary to her thoughts, he didn't seem to find the question rude. Instead, he just laughed beautifully again. 

"You should. What if we meet again? Will I just be 'the mortician from that shop'? I don't want to be that."

"What's your name then?" Lux just asked.

"Well, that's one complicated question. Everyone just calls me Undertaker, you can just call me that too"

Lux laughed at that. "Well, it's not that different from 'the mortician from that shop' you know?"

His eyes glistened in the dim light.

Lux noticed that, and just asked: "What?"

He shook his head. "It's nothing, you just have a beautiful laugh"

Lux blushed hard. No one had ever told her that. Actually, she was particularly self conscious about her laugh, leading to her trying to laugh as little as she could, worsening her depression even more.

But now, this man was telling her she had a beautiful laugh, and it felt as if part of the weight she was carrying was lifted off her shoulders.

"Why are you here?" He asked.

She looked at him confused. That simple question could mean so many things. Why was she in his shop? Why was she in 1889? Why was she in London? Why was she in the shinigami dispatch? 

She chose to answer two of them at once: "I don't know"

He laughed again. 

They were slowly slipping in such a comfortable state with each other, as if they had known each other for many years.

"Okay, okay, I'll try again. Judging from your scythe, you're still doing your exam right?"

She nodded.

"So that's why you were following that man. His daughter is actually going to die pretty soon I guess."

Lux nodded again.

"Tell me something about you. How old are you? Where are you from? When and why did you die?" He asked, curiosity slipping through his words.

"Just, how can everyone know I didn't die anytime near now, except for me?"

The man chuckled again. Seriously, was she that funny? He almost hadn't stopped laughing and chuckling and giggling since they had started talking.

"The truth about time and souls has always been way too complicated for a simple human brain to understand, I guess that's why they have stopped trying to explain it in the training."

"And why do you know then?" Lux asked, getting actually curious of this man before her.

"Darling, I have been a shinigami for much longer than you have even lived."

"Then tell me. I'm smart, I can understand."

"Well then. I'll try. The reality of things is that there are infinite universes, which are all just the same, except they are few moments apart. For example, if a man died right now, in another universe that same man has died..." he waited a couple of seconds before continuing. "...right now. Where the shinigami dispatch is is a whole other universe, a unique one. That place has no actual time. That's why people from different eras gather there at the same time."

"That makes no sense." Lux just commented, and again, Undertaker laughed.

"That's why I said it's too complicated for a human mind. Just know that, even if to you it doesn't make sense, and how about you answer my questions now?"

For just a moment, Lux hesitated. This man was insisting just way too much for her liking.

Just as that thought crossed her mind, another one overlapped it.

"I think I should go back. My partner-" she stopped. Was Undertaker going to think she was talking about a boyfriend? She didn't mean that. She didn't want him to think that.

Why? Maybe she was actually getting feelings for this weird man she had just met.

Was that a bad thing? Probably. Most likely.

She didn't care.

"The guy I'm doing my exam with," She corrected herself, "is waiting for me. He told me to follow the little girl's father while he checked on her and the mother. Right now he's probably thinking I left all the work to him. How about this? We keep the questions for another time. As an excuse to meet again. I'd love that." Lux finished, blushing hard.

"So cute when you blush." The man commented under his breath, but Lux could hear him far too well. "It's a promise then."

"Yes." Lux agreed, smiling widely and standing up, ready to get out of this shop and back to her actual task as soon as possible.

From that moment on, their exam was pretty easy. The poor little girl's condition worsened day after day, till the day she died. 

Lux was rooting for her, she was sure little girl would do great things, maybe right at the last moment, but unluckily, she couldn't.

Eventually, both Lux and her partner passed their exam and were able to become full reapers, ready to walk on earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo fun fact, I actually started writing this chapter during Christmas holidays but could quite finish it until now. So yeah, I'm not actually on holiday right now XD  
> I know probably the whole time thing doesn't actually make sense but it's just to explain why there are different people from different times.  
> As usual, hope you enjoyed the chapter.


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